I want to share a story which has been inspired by a post by Nick.
For many years now I have been seeing an elderly gentleman briskly walking every evening in our local joggers’ park. I have often heard him talk in Tamil with a companion while walking but somehow I kept my distance as having come to know that he was a retired senior government official, I thought it prudent that I don’t get involved and let off my favourite invectives about our bureaucrats.
Another friend who has been friendly with him however had other ideas and recently introduced the two of us to each other and I found that he was a person well worth knowing and not at all the ogre I had expected him to be. We now meet regularly at the park and try and spend some time together as well as we get to speak our mother tongue Tamil which otherwise we don’t get to speak much. We have also found that there are many things that we have in common and so the friendship is blossoming quite well.
I am glad that I made friends with him and I am also glad that some of the dire things that Nick talks about have not taken place, at least in this instance.
that is simply a lovely story rummy.
and one that is nicely ongoing.
i worked for state government here in my state.
and the overall impression is that they’re ALL lazy do-nothings i’m sure.
our office and i at my job in particular hit the ground running and never let up … sometimes even working through lunch just to stay caught up.
so grouping people by their ‘work place’ is common but not always fair!
i’m glad you gave him the benefit of the doubt and that a new friendship is forming!
Cheerful Monk’s quote today is synchronicity again! “We never know the quality of someone else’s life, though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.”
—Tami Hoag
Thanks to your friend Will Rogers was wrong. Great story!
Cheerful Monk recently posted..How True
But the quote is quite amusing is it not?
You had me worried there for a minute… I thought you had changed sides!
Grannymar recently posted..Work for today
No way! Stop worrying. I haven’t yet lost my marbles.
I like that quote. I am glad that this worked out for you. It sounds like he will be a wonderful companion.
All indications point in that direction indeed.
another friendship for you – great
Thank you. After that, I made another friend yesterday, again a Tamil speaking who turned out to be related to someone I know well. Spending time in the park seems to produce new friends.
Glad to know the friendship has prospered, unhindered by any “dire things”. And glad to know that some people give the lie to those withering stereotypes we like to throw around.
Nice to see you comment here Nick. Your post inspired that post. Since then, I have made another Tamil speaking friend at the park once again just overcoming the initial reluctance to venture into a unknown territory.
On my morning walks each day, I often encountered a tall, raw-boned woman who strode forward, large stick in hand. She often frowned down at my golden retriever at my side. I thought it best to avoid her and sometimes changed my planned route in order to do so. One day, however, a neighbor and I were chatting with a man who always wore a more genial aspect, and we learned that he had a terminal illness and was trying to maintain his strength as long as possible. The forbidding woman strode up and joined our conversation, and I learned she was this man’s ex-wife. The two walked off together, she altering her stride to accommodate his slower speed. Having been introduced to her, we then greeted each other whenever we passed each other and sometimes walked a few steps together. Soon, we were great friends. She carried a stick because she had once been brutally attacked by a dog while out walking. She took her ex-husband back into her home when he became too ill to live alone and nursed him through his final days, and we brought food. We hugged on the street when my husband had a scary surgery. She has since moved to another neighborhood, and I have since become too incapacitated to walk outside most days, but what sadness it would have been to have missed her friendship because of her stern demeanor and striding gait.
Thank you for the detailed comment. That is a poignant story Linda and reinforces the thrust of Nick’s post as well as mine that we may miss opportunities if we go by first impressions.
What a wonderful thing to be able to have another lesson that first impressions are not always right. It keeps us open to new things, right? And it’s never to late to chip away at lifelong habits.
Mother recently posted..A Visit to the Present
A lesson well learnt indeed Mother.